| James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902. | | | | August 13 | | Philip My King | | By Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–1887) |
| | | | “Who bears upon his baby brow the round and top of sovereignty.” |
| Philip Bourke Marston was an English poet who was born on August 13, 1850. He became blind at an early age. |
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LOOK at me with thy large brown eyes, | |
| Philip, my King! | |
| For round thee the purple shadow lies | |
| Of babyhood’s regal dignities. | |
| Lay on my neck thy tiny hand | 5 |
| With Love’s invisible sceptre laden; | |
| I am thine Esther, to command | |
| Till thou shalt find thy queen-handmaiden, | |
| Philip, my King! | |
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| Oh, the day when thou goest a-wooing, | 10 |
| Philip, my King! | |
| When those beautiful lips are suing, | |
| And, some gentle heart’s bars undoing, | |
| Thou dost enter, love-crowned, and there | |
| Sittest all glorified!—Rule kindly, | 15 |
| Tenderly, over thy kingdom fair; | |
| For we that love, ah! we love so blindly, | |
| Philip, my King! | |
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| I gaze from thy sweet mouth up to thy brow, | |
| Philip, my King! | 20 |
| Ay, there lies the spirit, all sleeping now, | |
| That may rise like a giant, and make men bow | |
| As to one God-throned amidst his peers. | |
| My Saul, than thy brethren higher and fairer, | |
| Let me behold thee in coming years! | 25 |
| Yet thy head needeth a circlet rarer, | |
| Philip, my King— | |
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| A wreath, not of gold, but palm! One day, | |
| Philip, my King! | |
| Thou too must tread, as we tread, a way | 30 |
| Thorny, and bitter, and cold, and gray; | |
| Rebels within thee, and foes without | |
| Will snatch at thy crown. But go on, glorious, | |
| Martyr, yet monarch! till angels shout, | |
| As thou sittest at the feet of God victorious, | 35 |
| “Philip, the King!” | | | |
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